The Bedford Row Conspiracy
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William Makepeace Thackeray >> The Bedford Row Conspiracy
"Lucy! Lucy! my soul's love--what, what has happened? I am writing
this"--(a gulp of brandy-and-water)--"in a state bordering on
distraction--madness--insanity"(another). "Why did you send me out
of the coach in that cruel cruel way? Write to me a word, a line--
tell me, tell me, I may come to you--and leave me not in this
agonising condition; your faithful"(glog--glog--glog--the whole
glass)--
"J.P."
He never signed John Perkins in full--he couldn't, it was so
unromantic.
Well, this missive was despatched by Mrs. Snooks, and Perkins, in a
fearful state of excitement, haggard, wild, and with more
brandy-and-water, awaited the return of his messenger.
When at length, after about an absence of forty years, as it seemed
to him, the old lady returned with a large packet, Perkins seized it
with a trembling hand, and was yet more frightened to see the
handwriting of Mrs. or Miss Biggs.
"MY DEAR MR. PERKINS," she began--"Although I am not your soul's
adored, I performed her part for once, since I have read your
letter, as I told her. You need not be very much alarmed, although
Lucy is at this moment in bed and unwell: for the poor girl has had
a sad scene at her grand uncle's house in Baker Street, and came
home very much affected. Rest, however, will restore her, for she
is not one of your nervous sort; and I hope when you come in the
morning, you will see her as blooming as she was when you went out
to-day on that unlucky walk.
"See what Sir George Gorgon says of us all! You won't challenge
him, I know, as he is to be your uncle, and so I may show you his
letter.
"Good-night, my dear John. Do not go QUITE distracted before
morning; and believe me your loving aunt,
"JEMIMA BIGGS."
"41 BAKER STREET: 11th December.
"MAJOR-GENERAL SIR GEORGE GORGON has heard with the utmost disgust
and surprise of the engagement which Miss Lucy Gorgon has thought
fit to form.
"The Major-General cannot conceal his indignation at the share which
Miss Biggs has taken in this disgraceful transaction.
"Sir George Gorgon puts an absolute veto upon all further
communication between his niece and the low-born adventurer who has
been admitted into her society, and begs to say that Lieutenant
Fitch, of the Lifeguards, is the gentleman who he intends shall
marry Miss Gorgon.
"It is the Major-General's wish, that on the 28th Miss Gorgon should
be ready to come to his house, in Baker Street, where she will be
more safe from impertinent intrusions than she has been in
Mucklebury Square.
"MRS. BIGGS,
"Caroline Place,
"Mecklenburgh Square."
When poor John Perkins read this epistle, blank rage and wonder
filled his soul, at the audacity of the little General, who thus,
without the smallest title in the world, pretended to dispose of the
hand and fortune of his niece. The fact is, that Sir George had
such a transcendent notion of his own dignity and station, that it
never for a moment entered his head that his niece, or anybody else
connected with him, should take a single step in life without
previously receiving his orders; and Mr. Fitch, a baronet's son,
having expressed an admiration of Lucy, Sir George had determined
that his suit should be accepted, and really considered Lucy's
preference of another as downright treason.
John Perkins determined on the death of Fitch as the very least
reparation that should satisfy him; and vowed too that some of the
General's blood should be shed for the words which he had dared to
utter.
We have said that William Pitt Scully, Esquire, M.P., occupied the
first floor of Mr. Perkins's house in Bedford Row: and the reader
is further to be informed that an immense friendship had sprung up
between these two gentlemen. The fact is, that poor John was very
much flattered by Scully's notice, and began in a very short time to
fancy himself a political personage; for he had made several of
Scully's speeches, written more than one letter from him to his
constituents, and, in a word, acted as his gratis clerk. At least a
guinea a week did Mr. Perkins save to the pockets of Mr. Scully, and
with hearty good will too, for he adored the great William Pitt, and
believed every word that dropped from the pompous lips of that
gentleman.
Well, after having discussed Sir George Gorgon's letter, poor
Perkins, in the utmost fury of mind that his darling should be
slandered so, feeling a desire for fresh air, determined to descend
to the garden and smoke a cigar in that rural quiet spot. The night
was very calm. The moonbeams slept softly upon the herbage of
Gray's Inn gardens, and bathed with silver splendour Theobald's Row.
A million of little frisky twinkling stars attended their queen, who
looked with bland round face upon their gambols, as they peeped in
and out from the azure heavens. Along Gray's Inn wall a lazy row of
cabs stood listlessly, for who would call a cab on such a night?
Meanwhile their drivers, at the alehouse near, smoked the short pipe
or quaffed the foaming beer. Perhaps from Gray's Inn Lane some
broken sounds of Irish revelry might rise. Issuing perhaps from
Raymond Buildings gate, six lawyers' clerks might whoop a tipsy
song--or the loud watchman yell the passing hour; but beyond this
all was silence; and young Perkins, as he sat in the summerhouse at
the bottom of the garden, and contemplated the peaceful heaven, felt
some influences of it entering into his soul, and almost forgetting
revenge, thought but of peace and love.
Presently, he was aware there was someone else pacing the garden.
Who could it be?--Not Blatherwick, for he passed the Sabbath with
his grandmamma at Clapham; not Scully surely, for he always went to
Bethesda Chapel, and to a select prayer-meeting afterwards. Alas!
it WAS Scully; for though that gentleman SAID that he went to
chapel, we have it for a fact that he did not always keep his
promise, and was at this moment employed in rehearsing an extempore
speech, which he proposed to deliver at St. Stephen's.
"Had I, sir," spouted he, with folded arms, slowly pacing to and
fro--"Had I, sir, entertained the smallest possible intention of
addressing the House on the present occasion--hum, on the present
occasion--I would have endeavoured to prepare myself in a way that
should have at least shown my sense of the greatness of the subject
before the House's consideration, and the nature of the
distinguished audience I have the honour to address. I am, sir, a
plain man--born of the people--myself one of the people, having won,
thank Heaven, an honourable fortune and position by my own honest
labour; and standing here as I do--"
* * *
Here Mr. Scully (it may be said that he never made a speech without
bragging about himself: and an excellent plan it is, for people
cannot help believing you at last)--here, I say, Mr. Scully, who had
one arm raised, felt himself suddenly tipped on the shoulder, and
heard a voice saying, "Your money or your life!"
The honourable gentleman twirled round as if he had been shot; the
papers on which a great part of this impromptu was written dropped
from his lifted hand, and some of them were actually borne on the
air into neighbouring gardens. The man was, in fact, in the direst
fright.
"It's only I," said Perkins, with rather a forced laugh, when he saw
the effect that his wit had produced.
"Only you! And pray what the dev--what right have you to--to come
upon a man of my rank in that way, and disturb me in the midst of
very important meditations?" asked Mr. Scully, beginning to grow
fierce.
"I want your advice," said Perkins, "on a matter of the very
greatest importance to me. You know my idea of marrying?"
"Marry!" said Scully; "I thought you had given up that silly scheme.
And how, pray, do you intend to live?"
"Why, my intended has a couple of hundreds a year, and my clerkship
in the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office will be as much more."
"Clerkship--Tape and Sealing-Wax Office--Government sinecure!--Why,
good heavens! John Perkins, you don't tell ME that you are going to
accept any such thing?"
"It is a very small salary, certainly," said John, who had a decent
notion of his own merits; "but consider, six months vacation, two
hours in the day, and those spent over the newspapers. After all,
it's--"
"After all it's a swindle," roared out Mr. Scully--"a swindle upon
the country; an infamous tax upon the people, who starve that you
may fatten in idleness. But take this clerkship in the Tape and
Sealing-Wax Office," continued the patriot, his bosom heaving with
noble indignation, and his eye flashing the purest fire,--"TAKE this
clerkship, John Perkins, and sanction tyranny, by becoming one of
its agents; sanction dishonesty by sharing in its plunder--do this,
BUT never more be friend of mine. Had I a child," said the patriot,
clasping his hands and raising his eyes to heaven, "I would rather
see him dead, sir--dead, dead at my feet, than the servant of a
Government which all honest men despise." And here, giving a
searching glance at Perkins, Mr. Scully began tramping up and down
the garden in a perfect fury.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed the timid John Perkins--"don't say SO. My
dear Mr. Scully, I'm not the dishonest character you suppose me to
be--I never looked at the matter in this light. I'll--I'll consider
of it. I'll tell Crampton that I will give up the place; but for
Heaven's sake, don't let me forfeit YOUR friendship, which is dearer
to me than any place in the world."
Mr. Scully pressed his hand, and said nothing; and though their
interview lasted a full half-hour longer, during which they paced up
and down the gravel walk, we shall not breathe a single syllable of
their conversation, as it has nothing to do with our tale.
The next morning, after an interview with Miss Lucy, John Perkins,
Esquire, was seen to issue from Mrs. Biggs's house, looking
particularly pale, melancholy, and thoughtful; and he did not stop
until he reached a certain door in Downing Street, where was the
office of a certain great Minister, and the offices of the clerks in
his Lordship's department.
The head of them was Mr. Josiah Crampton, who has now to be
introduced to the public. He was a little old gentleman, some sixty
years of age, maternal uncle to John Perkins; a bachelor, who had
been about forty-two years employed in the department of which he
was now the head.
After waiting four hours in an ante-room, where a number of
Irishmen, some newspaper editors, many pompous-looking political
personages asking for the "first lord," a few sauntering clerks, and
numbers of swift active messengers passed to and fro;--after waiting
for four hours, making drawings on the blotting-book, and reading
the Morning Post for that day week, Mr. Perkins was informed that he
might go into his uncle's room, and did so accordingly.
He found a little hard old gentleman seated at a table covered with
every variety of sealing-wax, blotting-paper, envelopes,
despatch-boxes, green tapers, etc. etc. An immense fire was blazing
in the grate, an immense sheet-almanack hung over that, a screen,
three or four chairs, and a faded Turkey carpet, formed the rest of
the furniture of this remarkable room--which I have described thus
particularly, because in the course of a long official life, I have
remarked that such is the invariable decoration of political rooms.
"Well, John," said the little hard old gentleman, pointing to an
arm-chair, "I'm told you've been here since eleven. Why the deuce
do you come so early?"
"I had important business," answered Mr. Perkins, stoutly; and as
his uncle looked up with a comical expression of wonder, John began
in a solemn tone to deliver a little speech which he had composed,
and which proved him to be a very worthy, easy, silly fellow.
"Sir," said Mr. Perkins, "you have known for some time past the
nature of my political opinions, and the intimacy which I have had
the honour to form with one--with some of the leading members of the
Liberal party." (A grin from Mr. Crampton.) "When first, by your
kindness, I was promised the clerkship in the Tape and Sealing-Wax
Office, my opinions were not formed as they are now; and having
taken the advice of the gentlemen with whom I act,"--(an enormous
grin)--"the advice, I say, of the gentlemen with whom I act, and the
counsel likewise of my own conscience, I am compelled, with the
deepest grief, to say, my dear uncle, that I--I--"
"That you--what, sir?" exclaimed little Mr. Crampton, bouncing off
his chair. "You don't mean to say that you are such a fool as to
decline the place?"
"I do decline the place," said Perkins, whose blood rose at the word
"fool." "As a man of honour, I cannot take it."
"Not take it! and how are you to live? On the rent of that house of
yours? For, by gad, sir, if you give up the clerkship, I never will
give you a shilling."
"It cannot be helped," said Mr. Perkins, looking as much like a
martyr as he possibly could, and thinking himself a very fine
fellow. "I have talents, sir, which I hope to cultivate; and am
member of a profession by which a man may hope to rise to the very
highest offices of the State."
"Profession, talents, offices of the State! Are you mad, John
Perkins, that you come to me with such insufferable twaddle as this?
Why, do you think if you HAD been capable of rising at the bar, I
would have taken so much trouble about getting you a place? No,
sir; you are too fond of pleasure, and bed, and tea-parties, and
small-talk, and reading novels, and playing the flute, and writing
sonnets. You would no more rise at the bar than my messenger, sir.
It was because I knew your disposition--that hopeless, careless,
irresolute good-humour of yours--that I had determined to keep you
out of danger, by placing you in a snug shelter, where the storms of
the world would not come near you. You must have principles
forsooth! and you must marry Miss Gorgon, of course: and by the
time you have gone ten circuits, and had six children, you will have
eaten up every shilling of your wife's fortune, and be as briefless
as you are now. Who the deuce has put all this nonsense into your
head? I think I know."
Mr. Perkins's ears tingled as these hard words saluted them; and he
scarcely knew whether he ought to knock his uncle down, or fall at
his feet and say, "Uncle, I have been a, fool, and I know it." The
fact is, that in his interview with Miss Gorgon and her aunt in the
morning, when he came to tell them of the resolution he had formed
to give up the place, both the ladies and John himself had agreed,
with a thousand rapturous tears and exclamations, that he was one of
the noblest young men that ever lived, had acted as became himself,
and might with perfect propriety give up the place, his talents
being so prodigious that no power on earth could hinder him from
being Lord Chancellor. Indeed, John and Lucy had always thought the
clerkship quite beneath him, and were not a little glad, perhaps, at
finding a pretext for decently refusing it. But as Perkins was a
young gentleman whose candour was such that he was always swayed by
the opinions of the last speaker, he did begin to feel now the truth
of his uncle's statements, however disagreeable they might be.
Mr. Crampton continued:--
"I think I know the cause of your patriotism. Has not William Pitt
Scully, Esquire, had something to do with it?"
Mr. Perkins COULD not turn any redder than he was, but confessed
with deep humiliation that "he HAD consulted Mr. Scully among other
friends."
Mr. Crampton smiled--drew a letter from a heap before him, and
tearing off the signature, handed over the document to his nephew.
It contained the following paragraphs:--
"Hawksby has sounded Scully: we can have him any day we want him.
He talks very big at present, and says he would not take anything
under a. . . This is absurd. He has a Yorkshire nephew coming up
to town, and wants a place for him. There is one vacant in the Tape
Office, he says: have you not a promise of it?"
"I can't--I can't believe it," said John; "this, sir, is some weak
invention of the enemy. Scully is the most honourable man
breathing."
"Mr. Scully is a gentleman in a very fair way to make a fortune,"
answered Mr. Crampton. "Look you, John--it is just as well for your
sake that I should give you the news a few weeks before the papers,
for I don't want you to be ruined, if I can help it, as I don't wish
to have you on my hands. We know all the particulars of Scully's
history. He was a Tory attorney at Oldborough; he was jilted by the
present Lady Gorgon, turned Radical, and fought Sir George in his
own borough. Sir George would have had the peerage he is dying for,
had he not lost that second seat (by-the-by, my Lady will be here in
five minutes), and Scully is now quite firm there. Well, my dear
lad, we have bought your incorruptible Scully. Look here,"--and Mr.
Crampton produced three Morning Posts.
"'THE HONOURABLE HENRY HAWKSBY'S DINNER-PARTY.--Lord So-and-So--Duke
of So-and-So--W. Pitt Scully, Esq. M.P.'
"Hawksby is our neutral, our dinner-giver.
"'LADY DIANA DOLDRUM'S ROUT.--W. Pitt Scully, Esq,' again.
"'THE EARL OF MANTRAP'S GRAND DINNER.'--A Duke--four Lords--'Mr.
Scully, and Sir George Gorgon.'"
"Well, but I don't see how you have bought him; look at his votes."
"My dear John," said Mr. Crampton, jingling his watch-seals very
complacently, "I am letting you into fearful secrets. The great
common end of party is to buy your opponents--the great statesman
buys them for nothing."
Here the attendant genius of Mr. Crampton made his appearance, and
whispered something, to which the little gentleman said, "Show her
Ladyship in,"--when the attendant disappeared.
"John," said Mr. Crampton, with a very queer smile, "you can't stay
in this room while Lady Gorgon is with me; but there is a little
clerk's room behind the screen there, where you can wait until I
call you."
John retired, and as he closed the door of communication, strange to
say, little Mr. Crampton sprang up and said, "Confound the young
ninny, he has shut the door!"
Mr. Crampton then, remembering that he wanted a map in the next
room, sprang into it, left the door half open in coming out, and was
in time to receive Her Ladyship with smiling face as she, ushered by
Mr. Strongitharm, majestically sailed in.
CHAPTER III.
BEHIND THE SCENES.
In issuing from and leaving open the door of the inner room, Mr.
Crampton had bestowed upon Mr. Perkins a look so peculiarly arch,
that even he, simple as he was, began to imagine that some mystery
was about to be cleared up, or some mighty matter to be discussed.
Presently he heard the well-known voice of Lady Gorgon in
conversation with his uncle. What could their talk be about? Mr.
Perkins was dying to know, and--shall we say it?--advanced to the
door on tiptoe and listened with all his might.
Her Ladyship, that Juno of a woman, if she had not borrowed Venus's
girdle to render herself irresistible, at least had adopted a
tender, coaxing, wheedling, frisky tone, quite different from her
ordinary dignified style of conversation. She called Mr. Crampton a
naughty man, for neglecting his old friends, vowed that Sir George
was quite hurt at his not coming to dine--nor fixing a day when he
would come--and added, with a most engaging ogle, that she had three
fine girls at home, who would perhaps make an evening pass
pleasantly, even to such a gay bachelor as Mr. Crampton.
"Madam," said he, with much gravity, "the daughters of such a mother
must be charming; but I, who have seen your Ladyship, am, alas!
proof against even them."
Both parties here heaved tremendous sighs and affected to be
wonderfully unhappy about something.
"I wish," after a pause, said Lady Gorgon--"I wish, dear Mr.
Crampton, you would not use that odious title 'my Ladyship:' you
know it always makes me melancholy."
"Melancholy, my dear Lady Gorgon; and why?"
"Because it makes me think of another title that ought to have been
mine--ours (I speak for dear Sir George's and my darling boy's sake,
Heaven knows, not mine). What a sad disappointment it has been to
my husband, that after all his services, all the promises he has
had, they have never given him his peerage. As for me, you know--"
"For you, my dear madam, I know quite well that you care for no such
bauble as a coronet, except in so far as it may confer honour upon
those most dear to you--excellent wife and noble mother as you are.
Heigho! what a happy man is Sir George!"
Here there was another pause, and if Mr. Perkins could have seen
what was taking place behind the screen, he would have beheld little
Mr. Crampton looking into Lady Gorgon's face, with as love-sick a
Romeo-gaze as he could possibly counterfeit; while her Ladyship,
blushing somewhat and turning her own grey gogglers up to heaven,
received all his words for gospel, and sat fancying herself to be
the best, most meritorious, and most beautiful creature in the three
kingdoms.
"You men are terrible flatterers," continued she; "but you say
right: for myself I value not these empty distinctions. I am
growing old, Mr. Crampton,--yes, indeed, I am, although you smile so
incredulously,--and let me add, that MY thoughts are fixed upon
HIGHER things than earthly crowns. But tell me, you who are all in
all with Lord Bagwig, are we never to have our peerage? His
Majesty, I know, is not averse; the services of dear Sir George to a
member of His Majesty's august family, I know, have been appreciated
in the highest quarter. Ever since the peace we have had a promise.
Four hundred pounds has Sir George spent at the Heralds' Office (I
myself am of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, Mr.
Crampton), and the poor dear man's health is really ruined by the
anxious sickening feeling of hope so long delayed."
Mr. Crampton now assumed an air of much solemnity.
"My dear Lady Gorgon," said he, "will you let me be frank with you,
and will you promise solemnly that what I am going to tell you shall
never be repeated to a single soul?"
Lady Gorgon promised.
"Well, then, since the truth you must know, you yourselves have been
in part the cause of the delay of which you complain. You gave us
two votes five years ago; you now only give us one. If Sir George
were to go up to the Peers, we should lose even that one vote; and
would it be common sense in us to incur such a loss? Mr. Scully,
the Liberal, would return another Member of his own way of thinking;
and as for the Lords, we have, you know, a majority there."
"Oh, that horrid man!" said Lady Gorgon, cursing Mr. Scully in her
heart, and beginning to play a rapid tattoo with her feet, "that
miscreant, that traitor, that--that attorney has been our ruin."
"Horrid man, if you please, but give me leave to tell you that the
horrid man is not the sole cause of your ruin--if ruin you will call
it. I am sorry to say that I do candidly think Ministers believe
that Sir George Gorgon has lost his influence in Oldborough as much
through his own fault as through Mr. Scully's cleverness."
"Our own fault! Good heavens! Have we not done
everything--everything that persons of our station in the county
could do, to keep those misguided men? Have we not remonstrated,
threatened, taken away our custom from the Mayor, established a
Conservative apothecary--in fact, done all that gentlemen could do?
But these are such times, Mr. Crampton: the spirit of revolution is
abroad, and the great families of England are menaced by democratic
insolence."
This was Sir George Gorgon's speech always after dinner, and was
delivered by his lady with a great deal of stateliness. Somewhat,
perhaps, to her annoyance, Mr. Crampton only smiled, shook his head,
and said--
"Nonsense, my dear Lady Gorgon--pardon the phrase, but I am a plain
old man, and call things by their names. Now, will you let me
whisper in your ear one word of truth? You have tried all sorts of
remonstrances, and exerted yourself to maintain your influence in
every way, except the right one, and that is--"
"What, in Heaven's name?"
"Conciliation. We know your situation in the borough. Mr. Scully's
whole history, and, pardon me for saying so (but we men in office
know everything), yours--"
Lady Gorgon's ears and cheeks now assumed the hottest hue of
crimson. She thought of her former passages with Scully, and of the
days when--but never mind when: for she suffered her veil to fall,
and buried her head in the folds of her handkerchief. Vain folds!
The wily little Mr. Crampton could see all that passed behind the
cambric, and continued--
"Yes, madam, we know the absurd hopes that were formed by a certain
attorney twenty years since. We know how, up to this moment, he
boasts of certain walks--"
"With the governess--we were always with the governess!" shrieked
out Lady Gorgon, clasping her hands. "She was not the wisest of
women."